


Unfettered

by GrandNinjaMasterRen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bedtime Stories, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Gen, Magic, Mentioned Han Solo, Mentioned Luke Skywalker, Mentioned Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mentioned Shaak Ti, Minor Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrandNinjaMasterRen/pseuds/GrandNinjaMasterRen
Summary: A story?Of course, dear child.I'll tell you a story of knights and demons, of love and family.Listen close, pay attention, this legend is far more than it seems.
Relationships: Juno Eclipse/Galen Marek, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Unfettered

_Sit down, dear children, and let me tell you a story._

It begins with a boy.

_Well, no. I suppose it starts with a king._

A long, long time ago...

_Not all fairytales begin with ‘Once upon a time’ and I’m the one telling this story._

_Fine._

Once upon a time, there was a king.

_What kind of king?_ He was an evil king, a tyrant. And this tyrant had as his right hand man, a knight of pure black, whose helmet was never removed and his face never seen.

The Tyrant was a master of dark magic, and he had trained the Black Knight in those depraved arts, for the Tyrant had held the Black Knight’s fealty from the time the knight was merely a squire. 

All knights, as you know, were once squires, apprentices to older knights.

_ The Black Knight’s Master isn’t important right now, quit jumping ahead. _

_ Now, where was I? _

_Ah, yes_. The Black Knight hated the Tyrant for killing his wife (a popular Countess who had spoken out against the Tyrant) and for the dark magic that the Tyrant used to twist the Black Knight’s mind.

Resolving himself to the foul sin of regicide, the Black Knight sought a servant of his own. 

Now, at this same time, a knight (whose wife had been killed by bandits) had taken his young son to shelter with nature spirits in the Deep Forest. 

The Black Knight used his depraved magic to summon pale, bony demons in endless hordes to cut through the nature spirits. When sap ran like blood and the ground was littered with piecemeal bones, the Black Knight stood in front of the Forest’s Protector and they dueled.

The clash of swords and the roar of magic lasted only a few short moments as the Black Knight stood victorious.

He relished in his victory, holding his victim in place with magic as he raised his blade to strike.

But there was nothing in his hand...

_ Hush, dear one, all will be revealed in time. _

A tug of light magic had pulled the blade from the Black Knight’s grip, and it now was held by a small child, a boy, hardly more than a baby, but his magic roared, even as the blade tilted wildly in his weak arms. 

The Forest’s Protector, with his final breaths, choked out a desperate plee for his son to run, but the boy was frozen in fear.

The demons, deprived of their meal when the Black Knight killed the Forest’s Protector with dark magic, turned to devour the boy, to feed on his power.

The Black Knight unhesitatingly cut down the demons and hurried the small child to his own home, a huge warship, under construction and still in dry dock. And it was there that the Black Knight raised his son to be a terror of the battlefield. Trained in every form of swordsmanship and drilled with every ounce of information the Black Knight deemed useful for the boy to know, he grew.

_ I mentioned the Black Knight’s wife, didn’t I? _

She was young and beautiful, a Countess, and she had married the Black Knight while he was yet still a squire, before the Tyrant had enslaved his mind with dark magic. The Countess had sought to break the spell, but to no avail and she died from a broken heart, the curse the Tyrant had placed upon her.

In her dying moments, she bore two children, a boy and a girl. She gave the boy to the Black Knight’s former master, and the Old Knight took him far, far away, to desert sands and foreign cultures, and so the Desert Boy grew. The girl was given to a friend of the Countess, a Duke of noble heart and firm resolve, and so the Little Duchess grew.

On the edge of town, far from the castle, lived a poor builder, and he had a lovely daughter with hair as bright as gold and eyes as blue as gemstones. The builder’s daughter dreamed of fancier things than her plain dresses and rough tasks, and for her beauty she was chosen as a royal maid. The Black Knight’s young squire saw her and fell deeply in love. The Black Knight had little patience for his apprentice’s flights of fancy and reasoned that the more the Black Squire saw of the Maid, the less he would care for her. So the Maid became the Black Squire’s personal attendant.

Now, the Black Knight had many enemies and he sent his squire to defeat them, but none gave the Black Squire quite so much trouble as the White Knight.

When first the two crossed blades, the Black Squire rent a gash across the White Knight’s eyes and, thinking him dead, returned to his Master. 

Seasons passed by as the Black Squire passed judgment upon the Black Knight’s enemies, from the Mad Tinker with his metal monsters, to the Witch who lived deep in a mushroom forest. 

But the Tyrant had heard rumors of the Black Knight’s plotting, and commanded the Black Squire’s death. The dark magic that forced the Black Knight’s loyalty, forced his hand and he struck out, stabbing his sword through his squire’s chest.

_ Little one, there’s no need to cry. I promise this story has a ‘happily ever after.’ _

The Black Knight used his arcane magic to bring his squire back from Death, and told the boy to hide, to erase his past and to assemble the Tyrant King’s enemies into an army to oppose him. The boy was shaken, but agreed, and he, with the Maid in tow set out in search of someone who could teach the boy more about magic.

They found the White Knight in a fairy garden, drinking elderberry wine and singing in tongues he ought not to know. As the boy approached the White Knight, the Black Knight’s identical, bone-white demons came for them. 

The boy, in a last ditch effort to persuade the White Knight to help, fought the seemingly endless waves of undead to save them all.

Impressed by his savior’s courage, but unwilling to fight because of the injury he had sustained fighting the Black Squire, the White Knight offered a quest to the boy, to go into the Deep Forest and retrieve an unidentified object for a Duke that might be sympathetic to the boy’s cause.

And so the boy went, deeper and deeper into the Forest, plagued with visions of past and possible futures, he went deeper still, until he came across the chilling demons that had remained in the Forest. Slaying the demons quickly, the boy accidentally entered an occupied chamber. The girl, who stood watching the demons buzz around a ritual circle, was a scant few years younger than the boy (and- unbeknownst to either of them, they were siblings of adoption- for the Black Knight was the Little Duchess’ father)

The Little Duchess entreated her unknown brother to destroy the ritual circle and save the forest spirits, and in the interest of keeping secret from the Little Duchess, the true nature of his loyalties, the Black Squire agreed.

When the ritual circle lay destroyed, the Little Duchess safe, while the Maid fussed over the Black Squire’s newest injuries, the White Knight tried to send a message to the Duke, but every messenger bird returned with its letter unopened. 

The White Knight asked for the boy’s aid in locating his friend, the Duke, and to the horror and guilt of both the Black Squire and the Maid, confessed that the Duke had gone to ask the Witch who lived in the Mushroom Forest to help rescue the Little Duchess. 

The Black Squire braves demons and beasts and fights his way to the Duke, held captive by the Witch’s Apprentice. They fight a brutal fight, but when it came time to strike a final blow, the Black Squire hesitated, seeing his own eyes reflected in her. But the Duke agreed to join the cause, and the Witch’s Apprentice ran away, so the Black Squire asked both his master and the White Knight what he should do next.

The White Knight urged the boy to strike at the Tyrant’s army, and the Black Knight’s messages gave the Black Squire a target, but the Maid was horrified to discover her love sending messages to the Black Knight. 

But the Black Squire promised to do the right thing when the time came, and the Maid was satisfied.

The target assigned to the Black Squire was a dry dock shipyard, where the Tyrant’s many warships were under construction. At the White Knight’s urging, the Black Squire drew upon his deep reserves of magic and ripped the warship apart. 

Impressed by the boy’s skills, the White Knight knighted his protégé, and so, the Black Squire became the Grey Knight.

The Grey Knight called forth his allies to meet in secret, but alas, the Black Knight had scried his former squire and led the Tyrant’s army to capture them.

Shocked and betrayed, the Grey Knight tried to duel his former master, but his hands shook so badly that he could hardly parry the Black Knight’s attacks. 

When at last one of the Black Knight’s strikes made contact, the Grey Knight fell to the ground, seemingly dead. 

The Maid, who had been caring for the Grey Knight’s horse, ran to her love and drew him close, treating his injuries as best she could. The Grey Knight confessed that he hadn’t expected the Black Knight to turn on him so quickly, but told the Maid that he would be going to rescue the White Knight, the Duke, and the rest of their allies. Fearing for her love’s safety, the Maid tucked her handkerchief into his pocket and gave him a kiss, for she did not know if she would ever see the Grey Knight again.

The Grey Knight fought his way inside the Tyrant’s palace, killing the demon guards and drawing upon his courage, challenged the Black Knight to a duel. 

The Black Knight relied heavily on dark magic to fight, but the Grey Knight used both light and dark magic to both defend and counterattack. 

When the fierce fight was through, the Black Knight lay defeated, his helm cracked and resignation in his gaze.

The Tyrant laughed hysterically and crowed for the Grey Knight to kill his former master, but the White Knight drew upon his magic to steal the Tyrant’s blade. The Tyrant attacked the White Knight with the darkest curses and the Grey Knight caught the curse with his own body. The Grey Knight shouted at his allies to run and as they fled, he brought the heavy stone roof down on the Tyrant, the Black Knight, and himself.

_ Of course this story has a ‘happily ever after’. I’m not done telling it yet. _

The Black Knight was grievously wounded, and the Tyrant was unharmed, but the Grey Knight lay dead among the crushed rubble. The Tyrant ordered the Grey Knight’s body to be thrown into the moat, and the Black Knight complied. 

The Grey Knight’s body washed up on the shore and was, not long after, found by the Maid who began to cry. 

And where her tears splashed into the moat, naiads came up from the watery depths. The naiads took hold of the body and dragged it deep into the blue. The moat began to glow and the naiads brought the Grey Knight back up to the Maid. 

And when his head broke the surface of the water, he began to cough. Overwhelmed with joy, the Maid kissed the Grey Knight fiercely, not even caring for the water that lapped at her skirts. 

And they lived happily ever after...

_ What do you mean ‘this can’t be the end’? Of course it’s the end. _

_ Oh. You want to know what happened to the Black Knight and the Tyrant. _

The Tyrant eventually found his end at the hands of the Black Knight, but not before the Black Knight was mortally wounded. The Black Knight died, cradled in his son’s arms. Very few mourned the Black Knight, most of whom had known him as a squire, but none mourned the Tyrant. The Little Duchess married a particularly kind outlaw- much to the horror of both the Grey Knight and the Desert Boy. The Desert Boy became good friends with many of the Grey Knight’s allies. The Maid married her knight in the spring.

And everyone lived happily ever after...


End file.
